


Playing Chicken

by themadjaguar57



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Black Eagle Route, Character Death, F/F, Gen, its been literal years how do i tag things, shamir is sad and has sad feelings i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 13:10:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20489420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themadjaguar57/pseuds/themadjaguar57
Summary: SPOILERS FOR BE ROUTE:You can recruit Shamir but not Catherine and BE doesn't really have sword units with Crests for Thunderbrand so. Shamir keeps it and embraces the end I Guess





	Playing Chicken

Shamir is a betting woman. Not a gambler, never a gambler, there’s a difference. Betters choose the game, the odds, the time, the place, they stack the cards just so that when their turn comes up it ought to be all aces.

Catherine though, Catherine was a gambler. She pulled aces quickly and got lucky, but she didn’t know fuck all about anything else going on at the table. Didn’t read people, couldn’t count cards. She might have tried a few times, but really being born a giant with a talent for the exact position always open (knights die all the time, they’re gamblers) set her up for a bit of success. 

They started playing games after working together a bit, just a job or two here and there, but travel gets boring and Shamir always had a game or two on her. She started with the dice, simple and easy to cheat at. It got boring though, always winning in the end, and Catherine never stopped trying, even as she bled money like a stuck pig, so Shamir stopped betting against her.

She showed her other games, ones she had gathered from other lands and ones she had found in tiny remote Fodlan villages so out of the way their rules hadn’t travelled. Catherine liked anything with a story, an emotional gambit, some sort of imaginary person she could save with tarot or a spinning top or marbles. In a more complicated board game she sacrificed pieces for Shamir’s own victories constantly, and said it wasn’t worth winning if both heroes didn’t get to the end. When Shamir protested the title hero all she got was a laugh and a kiss on the cheek as her partner cleared the board.

“You made it to the end, you get to be the hero, don’t be a sore winner!”

Years flew by before she knew it, and then came the year before the war. The Black Eagles had the money. Shamir was a betting woman, and a mercenary, and she went where odds were good.

Catherine was a gambler.

And so came the war, and the odds changed.

The Emperor had a deft and cruel hand, anything that stood in her way crumbled. Shamir was almost always ahead of the ruckus the Strike Force started, ducking in and out of the fray before she could take a hit. After all, it’s always best to hedge your bets, and Shamir wasn’t really an armor girl.

And the day came that she ran ahead and saw her, sword blazing and armor shining. The battalions charged ahead and hesitating nearly had them both trampled as their own men swarmed past them.

Catherine came charging, Thunderbrand held high, fifteen openings all over her chest an arrow could find. Every inch of her was the storybook knight, the hero of the Church. She looked beautiful.

Shamir hadn’t even knocked an arrow, just stood in shock and awe, frozen in place. A few feet from where she stood she saw Catherine’s face twisted in frustration, and then nothing, as blood sprayed into her eyes. She felt herself dragged off by the collar to take shelter from the main cavalry, and didn’t see her again until the funeral pyres were being built. She was riddled with arrow holes, shot from behind. Stupid mistake. Gambled on a game of chicken.

Everything she owned she deserved to be buried with, after all Shamir had no use for old cloaks (even if they smelled like her) or old letters (they’re not to Shamir anyway). Through some stroke of pity she ends up with Thunderbrand. It ought to be in some great knight’s hand but they don’t have anyone with a Crest for it, so it might as well be a memento.

Catherine told her once that the sword doesn’t really cut, it’s old bones and steel, the most you could do is bludgeon someone with it. The magic cuts, so it needs a Crest or to eat someone from the inside. It’s a gamble, you have to either have the right cards or risk it all.

It hurts to use it. Oh it hurts. Having life drawn out of you isn’t really a describable pain, it just very suddenly appears as blood inside you screams and dies. Every time a noble knight lies carved in half Shamir’s vision blurs and her ears ring, an electric sear arcing through every cell in her body.

She keeps going though, keeps gambling because at this point she might as well. She doesn’t have anything to lose, really. The house has already taken something from her she can’t win back, can’t pony up anything equal to the life of another person, of the one piece she can’t replace.

She has to be the hero now, because she’s not allowed to be a sore winner. She just has to win. She was given a chance to cross the finish line. She shouldn’t waste it.

It’s not worth doing alone.

Everything smells like ozone and ether and she can barely feel her hands when the sword finally explodes into darkness, and there is pain, and then nothing.


End file.
